Laura Noel says of her work, "I look down because there are treasures here, but also the means to trip and fall."

Laura Noel’s work often explores issues related to cultural trends and public policy such as the move to a digital society, bans on public smoking and so forth, as well as aspects of her personal history.

She was a 2015-2016 Walthall Fellow at the WonderRoot Arts Center and recipient of a 2016 Idea Capital Grant. Her work is in the collection of The High Museum of Art, The George Eastman House, The Ogden Museum in New Orleans, North Carolina State’s Gregg Museum of Art and Design, MOCA GA and a number of private and public collections.

She received a BA in Public Policy Studies from Duke University and a MFA in Photography with Distinction from the University of Georgia.

Her prints been featured in exhibitions at the Pingyao International Photography Festival in China, the Contemporary American Photography exhibition at the Internationale Fototage Festival in Mannheim, Germany, Gallery 24 in Berlin, United Photo Industries in New York City, The Rhode Island School of Design Museum, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, Jackson Fine Art, Lumiere, Davis Orton Gallery in upstate New York and Gallery 1401 in Philadelphia.

In 2012, her All’s Fair series inaugurated Fall Line Press’ Free Fall series of quarterly magazines featuring the work of one photographer. Recently, Scotland’s Aglu Books published Withdrawn, a study of discarded library books.

Her artist books are in the collections of the International Center of Photography library in New York, the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, the Savannah College of Art Design’s ACA Library of artist books, The Houston Museum of Fine Art, The Cleveland Art Institute, The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas and many private collections.

Recent installations include a commission from Atlanta Celebrates Photography and the Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority to convert a subway car into an art gallery called Kaleidoscope, To Do at the Spruill Gallery, The Enchanted Forest of Books on the Atlanta Beltline, Give/Swap/Receive at Emory University, and The Empathy Experiment at ArtFields 2017.

Noel works as a photographer and arts writer. She has also taught at Emory University, Kennesaw State University, and Oglethorpe University in Atlanta.

Laura Williams says of her work, "I associate my 35_56_N 79_05_W series with an enduring memory from my childhood.

The first time I looked through the lens of a microscope at a small sliver of onion I encountered an unknown world, and what I saw had a profound impact on me: I realized that what we see is not necessarily all that can be seen and that the world is profoundly larger than I had assumed.

I am interested in how we navigate the unknown and I am driven by a sensorial engagement with visual perception – seeking to produce images that evoke sense memories, somatic responses to the visual worlds which I create. Finding the right image is much like the recalling of a dream that lies just under the surface as you wake.

These images are populated with organic materials – insect bodies, spider webs, twigs, leaves and moss – that I collect on my daily walks and observe over time.

As they dry and decay, these scraps of natural detritus twist and curl, culminating in increasingly gestural forms.

I cultivated a mode of photographing these materials designed to bring the viewer into a mindset of wonder, an almost vertiginous reframing of natural elements.

I work through the photographic process from the perspective of painterly abstraction, harnessing a visceral fascination with the unseen. "

Laura Williams received a BA in studio art from the University of Vermont and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Her recent photographic work has been shown throughout North Carolina, and she has been in shows in Colorado, Virginia, and Vermont.

She is a versatile artist who has balanced working as a sculptor, costumer, and graphic designer with the pursuit of her own work.

She has always used her photography as a source of inspiration for her image making and her most recent photographs are the result of a long evolution and relationship.

Mark Levinson says of his work,"'Extracts of the Ordinary', I believe that the ordinary, when viewed through the lens of a particular imagination, can reveal surprising outcomes.

I love to search out odd and curious fragments of commonplace scenes that normally go unnoticed, and capture them in images: the top of a red ladder peeking into an abstract architectural tableau; the shadow of an enormous flag peering down on an unsuspecting newspaper reader.

Some are just odd or overlooked snippets of our surroundings. Some of them are unexpected juxtapositions that appear to me, often fleetingly. Others show eccentric artifacts of the real world--I have only to see them and aim my camera.

Taken together, these images may seem to depict a strange reality. But they are really just reflections of the domains we inhabit every day."

Mark Levinson is a photographer living in Lincoln, MA.

During a long career in high-tech, he has remained passionate about his photography, pursuing a personal vision of the urban and natural world.

Levinson’s work has been exhibited in many local shows, including the juried Mass Art annual Spring auction and the Photography Atelier at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA.

He has photographed extensively for the Sudbury Valley Trustees, a Massachusetts land conservation organization. Many of his landscape photographs of SVT properties have appeared on their web site and in their publications, and have been important aids to their conservation efforts.

He studied photography at M.I.T. in the 1970’s and more recently at the Griffin Museum of Photography. He is a member of the Griffin Museum of Photography and on board of directors of the Bedford, MA Center for the Arts Photo Group.

Kriegh February 04_2017 032_Beacon, NY by Michael Bogdanffy-Kriegh(Click on image for larger view)

Michael Bogdanffy-Kriegh says of his work, "Charles Ives’ Unanswered Question is a structural metaphor for my work, both process and artifact. The music has three parts; a continuous universal hum with no beginning or end, rather it fades in at the beginning and out at the end; a poser of the fundamental question; a chorus that tries, unsuccessfully, to give the poser an answer that satisfies.

My photographic practice is a daily meditative dipping into the hum. There isn’t a consistent focus or idea from one day to the next, only a stream of observations. Out of this stream I make assemblages. No assemblage is a definitive question or answer. Just a meditation on the hum.

The set of images submitted here are chosen to meet the theme “Nothing Special.”

Bogdanffy-Kriegh is a self-trained photographer living and working in Beacon, NY. Formally trained as an architect, he made the decision to focus exclusively on his photography work in 2013. His work has been developed through a daily meditative walk and writing practice during which he photographs whatever compels him.

Michael's work has appeared in several exhibitions, including Welcome: Page by Page, an exhibit of artist books curated by Hannah Frieser at the Center for Photography in Woodstock, and the 21st Annual Juried Show: Peter Urban Legacy Exhibition, juried by Jim Casper, at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester MA.

His photographs have also been published in Shots Magazine issue #129 and issue #130, the annual portfolio edition.

Natalia Mills says of her work, "Being awake in the hours that most are asleep is intriguing to me.

The world is different and un-watched. The colors compliment the dark sky and invoke beauty in their silent vibrance. Seeing a city lit up at night for the first time is like discovering your lover loves you back. To capture this feeling I use soft focuses and long exposures because love is not sharp nor fast, and often is not true to reality.

Growing up my family made two big moves at just the right moments in my life for me to understand change as a good thing. I moved away to college to study photography in the most beautiful sate side area I could find, Colorado Mountain College in Glenwood Springs CO.

Once out of college I wanted to literally see the world. I didn't have any money but that had never stopped me before. There is always another way and with that in mind I got a job working for American Airlines. Using the flight benefits I started traveling as much as possible. Couch surfing and on a budget I would wander the city looking in from the outside and trying to find the hidden magic.

Taking thousands of long exposures to understand the movement of the city as its own entity, I started this project. Now, everywhere I visit I take a night with my camera to explore just what might not have been seen before."

It wasn’t until the age of 46 that NINA WEINBERG DORAN, a self-taught artist, discovered her passion for photography.

Based in New York, she has shot in the Caribbean, Guatemala, Morocco, Mexico and the streets of New York City.

Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at museums and galleries including the A Smith Gallery (TX), Griffin Museum of Photography (MA), Center for Fine Art Photography (CO), Center for Photographic Art (CA), The Half King (NYC), AHM Gallery (VA), Eyebuzz Gallery (NY). In 2013, she was included in Rising Waters: Photographs of Hurricane Sandy, an exhibition at both Governors Island and the Museum of the City of New York, a collaboration between the Museum of the City of New York and the International Center of Photography.

In 2011, she received an honorable mention in the Robert Cornelius Portrait Award competition and the Julia Margaret Cameron Award competition; her work is included in the Julia Margaret Cameron Award’s “A collection of works by women photographers.” She is currently developing a body of work exploring the concept of stillness.

Weinberg Doran says of her work, "It begins with a racing heartbeat, when I spot something out of the corner of my eye that I know I have to photograph. In an instant I’ll propel myself out of a moving car or turn down a path in the opposite direction because I am magnetized – stirred in such a way that there is nothing else I can do.

I see myself as a rubber-band, always stretching to see anew, to find different ways to express what I feel through my camera. My work spans fine art, social documentary, street photography, and environmental portraiture. Some images are responsive, others compositional; I am not confined to any one style. The thread that runs through my images is the essence of who I am and where my heart lies.

I begin with a moment that makes me tingle. It might be a woman clutching a rooster from a broken down truck, or a small plastic doll face down on a sandy beach. My photographs reflect different sides of myself, but they’re always about connection: the emotional dialogue that takes place between me and my subjects, the nuanced bonds that affirm what is familiar to us all rather than what sets us apart."

Patricia Sandler says of her work, "The series, “Unruly Vegetables Redux” is concerned with portraying the "containment of the unruly".

This project is an exercise in the use of natural light that evolved into a meditation on relationships, sacrifice, abandonment and the like.

My meandering musings in turn began to inform my setups for each frame, metaphorically reflecting my own thoughts on the choices, trials and challenges of human existence and relationship.

This, it struck me, was like the moralistic still lifes of the 17th century except with no absolutes, moral judgment or threat of eternal damnation involved, and with a desire to have the viewer construct their own singular narration."

Patricia Sandler received a B.A. in photography from UCLA in the 1970’s, where she had the opportunity to work extensively with Robert Heinecken. As a photographer, she believes passionately in the notion of art as catalyst to stimulate the heart, the mind and the memory. Her love of and belief in the power of words has also played a significant part in many of her projects.

Patricia has exhibited her photography in many group exhibitions throughout the United States, and has pieces in the permanent collections of The Museum of Fine Arts,Houston and the Center for Photography at Woodstock permanent print collection, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art/College Art Gallery at S.U.N.Y., New Paltz, New York.

Paul Sisson says of his work, "'Not So Far From Here' is a unique photographic portrait of the Western American landscape. The images seek beauty in non-traditional places, show a crumbling rural culture, and find humor in simple and subtle ways.

The project emphasizes the journey, rather than the destination, and explores the things that can be found by slowing down and taking in the world that lies beyond the tunnel vision that so often dominates our daily lives."

Over the last several years, Sisson has been collecting these scenes during open-ended, unplanned road trips throughout the Western states. Originating from his home in Colorado, he has traveled through 21 states and driven over 21,000 miles spanning 16 separate trips since 2012. With an emphasis and enjoyment for the process, Not So Far From Here is a thoughtful look at life on the open road.

Paul Sisson is a 2013 Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography graduate from the University of Colorado Denver.

Originally from Minneapolis, MN, he currently resides in Arvada, CO. His work has been shown across the country in a wide array of solo and group exhibitions and publications.

He has recently been a part of shows at the Masur Museum of Art, Griffin Museum of Photography, Center for Fine Art Photography, and published in Fraction Magazine.

Paul is represented by Michael Warren Contemporary in Denver, CO and his ongoing body of work, Not So Far From Here, can be found on his website, www.PaulSissonPhoto.com.

HOME ON THE RANGE by Paul Sisson(Click on image for larger view)

NEXT AUCTION by Paul Sisson(Click on image for larger view)

BACKSTAGE by Pearlie Noman(Click on image for larger view)

Pearlie Noman says of her work,"I was one of many who have had a day time job but a passion for life. The media I chose to grab the moment is digital photography; often times the mobile is the only tool. There is a wide range of subjects that I find interesting, but I will say my style has more of an urban flair. While many of my photos are incidental snapshots, I also enjoy the playfulness of the light and various perspectives when working with still life.

With thousands and thousands of photos stored in the computer, I have never thought about embarrassing myself by sharing them with others until a life and death event struck. I finally quit the 10-plus year long successful career and in 4 weeks time pulled off a small solo photography exhibition called “Accidentally Beautiful” in December 2016.

As an entry-level amateur, my goal is to enjoy and appreciate others' ideas and creativity, and be introduced to and fully emerge in the wonderful world of art.

All three images are street-snaps; components in the image are as is while colors and the overall tone are enhanced.
“Backstage”- street snap; at the exhibition the vendor’s personal items got tucked away in-between the air vent on the floor against the glass wall.

“Dark Love”- street snap; a bouquet was tossed away and scattered on the street

“Nobody”- street snap; a messy desk top belongs to a nobody who daydreams to be an artist

DARK LOVE by Pearlie Noman(Click on image for larger view)

NOBODY by Pearlie Noman(Click on image for larger view)

BC by Qin Zhang(Click on image for larger view)

Qin Zhang says of her work, "I like to combine my interests in philosophy and photography, with reference to my love and appreciation for arts in my work.

My works tend to be minimalist and somewhat conceptual. Some have more expressionist touch, where I will be expressing my emotions and thoughts. There are other pieces where I am mostly emotional neutral, and ask the viewers to investigate the psychological and emotional impacts the images will generate. The lines between them often are not very clear, as even in pieces where I am expressing my thoughts and emotions, often viewers’ can find their own interpretations.

“Into Existence” is a new series I just started working on, generally related to problems with Existentialism regarding limitations of physical existences and their effects on people’s minds. The images are made with photos of vegetables and fruits (with some digital processing), making reference to human organs and other biological existences."

Qin Zhang was born in China, and currently is living in Los Angeles. She is a self-taught abstract conceptual/minimalist artist currently working in photography. She is also a philosopher, focusing on human intelligence, and an inventor in Artificial Intelligence, automation, and other software fields. She is a patent attorney, and a mechanical engineer.
She also likes to sing and sometimes write poems.

Renee Romero says of her work, "Growing up I had lived in as many places as the years I’d been alive. It wasn’t until I was fifteen years old that we finally settled into this home. Onto two acres of neglected land in Belen, New Mexico with a double wide trailer that had holes in the walls.

'A Place Called Home' is a series of black and white images of my family, the spaces they inhabit, and the details that I’ll miss. Using a 4x5 view camera I spent time in each space of my family home, examining details, and trying to collect images of the space before I moved states away.

Over the years this home has changed so much, it has become a place that I love. I’m continually creating my story of this place that holds so much significance in my life, as my true first home."

Renee Romero is an emerging artist using both analog and digital methods to photograph her family, relationships, and everyday life.

Romero is a recent graduate of the University of New Mexico where she received a BA in studio Arts.

She currently lives and works in Fort Dix New Jersey where she is working on a body of military spouse portraits, and capturing her everyday life on a military base.

EDUCATION:

University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Bachelor of Arts in Studio Arts, Photography Concentration 2016

AT THE END OF BIRTH by Robert Calafiore(Click on image for larger view)

Robert Calafiore says of his work, "I use a 40" x 30" hand-built pinhole camera to create large scale, 40” x 30”, one-of-a-kind, entirely analog c-prints. My work attempts to truthfully document and share my experience of beauty. The subject matter in this project is the male muse. The nude figure is placed within a large complex stage set. The planning and construction process are as integral to my practice as is the camera. The end result is a photographic documentation of the experience as it reveals itself during the shoot.

The unique power of this simple box to incomparably translate and transform the subject, revealing an invisible image, one almost not meant to be seen by our human eye, is the basis for this work. These photographs investigate and question my understanding and experience of beauty . This way of seeing in the negative, what can't otherwise be seen, eludes to my interest in our awareness and observation of the remarkable world within and around us. The human capacity for seeing and understanding all of what surrounds us is challenged. My studio practice is inspired by this fascination and obsession to transcend and elevate the ordinary to an unfamiliar, otherworldly, beautiful, and magical place.

The stories told through relationships, both physical and psychological, takes part in driving the work in this part of my studio practice. Allowing both the narrative and the image to come together simultaneously in the studio, is both exciting and stressful. During my shooting time in the studio, I recall periods in art history that inspire me, called up from my memory, including for example, the art of the Greek and Roman empires. In rather general terms, mythological and religious stories serve as a foundation for creating new contemporary tales, again, at once personal and universal.

My long term interest in process, traditional materials, color theory, and the reaction between light and chemistry is also paramount. No digital tools are ever used. The photographs are born out of intense labor, real physical interaction with the scene, subject, camera and processing. This very hands-on experience speaks to the way we all see, interpret and react to the world around us, given how the on-going digital revolution has changed . My personal relationship, awareness and sensitivity to the physical world, constantly inform the work.

The light sensitive color paper is exposed to 20 minutes of varied light totally 50,000 watts. The f/stop equivalent of the pinhole is f/958, a tiny opening requiring prolonged exposure for the paper to record an image and achieve a rich saturation. The making of the works is a performance as I give the model direction, change and shift lighting, dodge and burn areas by casting shadows or funneling additional light to a selected spot, to increase or decrease density to certain areas. Though I am moving too quickly to be recorded in any discernible way, I am, so to speak, a part of every image.

The final prints, at first seemingly digital manipulations, given the bright colors and reversed lighting, eventually point to the irony between the labor intensive work involved and the soft focus quality of the pinhole camera's limitations, a sort of "loss of labor". The viewer is left to understand what they see by questioning and experiencing beauty from an otherworldly perspective."

Robert Calafiore was born in New Britain, Connecticut to Italian immigrants. Both his early childhood and young adult experiences have played a significant role in shaping his interests and practice. Raised in a traditional Roman Catholic home, and part of a large extended family, the religious influence and the strong ties to traditions and work ethic, contributed in molding the way he relates to the world. After attending art school for both BFA and MFA degrees, Calafiore has focused on his artist's practice while administrating, teaching and promoting the fine arts, internally and externally from a university staff and faculty position at the University of Hartford.

He received his MFA in Photography from the State University of New York at Buffalo and his BFA in Photography from Hartford Art School. Currently he lives and works in West Hartford, Connecticut, exhibiting his work primarily on the east coast, with his first mid west group show in Denver, CO late last year and his first west coast show to open in Seattle, WA in September 2017.

A LETTER NEVER READ by Robert Calafiore(Click on image for larger view)

UNDER THE SUN by Robert Calafiore(Click on image for larger view)

ON THE WAY TO CHINATOWN, HAWAII by Rosalyn Song(Click on image for larger view)

Rosalyn Song says of her work, "'Summer is gone' is a series that took me four years to complete. For this project, I focused on my travels in Guam, Hawaii and Northern Mariana Islands. My photos are records of my walks around these unique island cultures, absorbing the local objects and environment. The relationship between people and environment is often forgotten, and I try to capture those images that may not be so obvious and noticed. There are many things in the world that may not seem unique, but I believe they are nonetheless beautiful. There will be a great discovery in the mundane if I keep my perspective opening towards the world."

Rosalyn Song is a photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona and Seoul, Korea. After studied cultural anthropology, she focused in photography when she had gave herself a time to be alone for years. She believes every surroundings in this world could be materials to make a great art.

VIEW FROM OLOHANA STREET, HAWAII by Rosalyn Song(Click on image for larger view)

DATA HUB by Ruth Grimes(Click on image for larger view)

Ruth Grimes says of her work, "I like to photograph the simple things in life.

I love the serenity of evening light as it guides us from day to night, from the harshness of day to the the coziness of a night in with loved ones, or a night out in a bustling city. I enjoy early morning in a city as it ushers in the changing of the guard.

'Data Hub' -Such an American icon, the mailbox, the only sign that there is a community at this high desert location. Near Palm Desert, CA

As an immigrant I am obsessed with photographing the daily small reminders that I am living here in the US—mailboxes, hotdogs, V8 engines, fast food, Harleys, alleyways in big cities, ice cream sundaes, 18-wheeler trucks, sunshine, crosswalks, memories of the wild west.

Releasing the shutter is a mindful moment for me. In that instant, I appreciate the simple realities of my surroundings.

I have been influenced by some of the greatest pioneers in color street photography; William Eggleston, Saul Leiter, Trent Parke, and more recent women street photographers such as Valerie Jardin and Marie Laigneau.

Eight years ago my career went from instructor and trainer in IT to middle school Special Education teacher, which has given me more time to focus on my art. That extra time and the beautiful surroundings here in Monterey have led me to delve deeper into fine art photography with a focus on portraits and street photography. I joined several women's photography groups and became a member of CPA enjoying as many of their events as I can.

With the advancement of software technology, I find myself continuing to grow and explore, expanding my creativity. Recently I have been exploring glamour portrait photography using photographers like Sarah Moon, Lillian Bassman, and old time Hollywood photographers, as my inspiration. My passion for my art continues to soar."

Food Hall :: The college food hall awaits the return of students in the Fall, Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey, CA

LIFEGUARD HUT by Ruth Grimes(Click on image for larger view)

Lifeguard Hut - It's the gull in the bottom left of this image that keeps drawing me back, he reminds me that this is his place too. Morro Bay, CA

I NEED SOMEBODY by Sally Ann Field(Click on image for larger view)

Sally Ann Field says of her work, "As a photographic artist, my work examines and documents elements of being human; as a street photographer, I am drawn to people and the places they inhabit within the context of a city. The streets become stages where small dramas are played out in a split second. My fascination with how humans interact with space allows me to imagine that I am a director, seeking to capture cinematic and emotional moments on film.

After a career as an art director and designer, I now add on the skill of being a watcher and reactor. I first look for light and then wait for life to play out and create tableaus of joy or pain or exhaustion. The results are small novellas, short stories that are a moment in time without a beginning or ending. It’s the not knowing and the momentary recognition that allows for a whole host of scenarios to be imagined. I think and see graphically, seeking visual structure to my images. I tend to simplify the frame and leave the opportunity for emotion and magic to fill in the spaces."

Sally Ann Field is a commercial and fine art photographer influenced by human behavior and pop-culture. Her background in art direction and design play a definite role in her image making.

She grew up in the rural town of Sandusky, NY. She then studied design and began her advertising art direction career in Miami, FL, later relocating to Los Angeles, CA.

Sally’s work has been exhibited at a variety of institutions, including the DNJ Gallery in Los Angeles, the Light Box Gallery in Astoria, OR, the SE Center for Photography in Greenville, SC and the Los Angeles Center of Photography. Her work has been published in Don’t Take Pictures, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Bokeh Bokeh and Feature Shoot. She is also a frequent contributor to Click Magazine. Sally’s photographs have garnered awards from Leica and National Geographic and she gives back to various organizations through her photographic efforts.

Sally lives and works in Hollywood, California with her American Pit Bull Terrier (and muse) Delilah Bean Field.

HOMAGE TO MORANDI by Sonia Melnikova-Raich(Click on image for larger view)

Sonia Melnikova-Raich says of her work, " I look for poetry and mystique in the most common of things. In that respect I feel a strong affinity with the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, with its focus on the transient nature of things, preference for muted colors, and reverence for the subtle beauty in old and simple things, the beauty that exists in the aged, modest, rustic, imperfect, or even decayed; an aesthetic sensibility that finds a melancholic beauty in the impermanence of all things.

I do not necessary endeavor to invite the viewer to exotic locations where nobody has traveled before, or show unusual things which nobody has seen before, but rather what other have looked at but saw a different story from the one I see, capturing fleeting moments, barely visible, ambiguous or disappearing things.

I was born and grew up in Moscow, in the former USSR. There I was trained and worked as an artist and architect. Later in life, when I already lived in San Francisco, I turned to photography, but schooling in painting and architecture remains present in my work. I exhibit locally and nationally and have been a winner in many art and photography juried exhibits. I had several solo shows and some of my photographs have been featured in professional art and photography magazines."

STILL LIFE WITH HORSES TACK by Sonia Melnikova-Raich(Click on image for larger view)

CONE by Stan Friedman(Click on image for larger view)

Stan Friedman says, "A Photographic Artist with an ongoing interest in emerging technologies and their personal/social/political/spiritual implications. Extensive experience in non-fiction, media production as a writer/producer/editor.

Through it all, constantly in search of elegant moments living in the quiet spaces between . . .

A little background to give you some context for my image gathering:

Imagery has always been central to my life. . . . . . . heightened, possibly even seeded, when I tried vainly to convince my first grade teacher the front door of my home was really, really, really, blue!

Building upon visions, whether by word/by image/by sound, or simply written quietly, has guided me down many paths - one meandering path I kept returning to was of a somewhat quirky film editor, filmmaker, and writer/producer - all the while/all the time, lookin’ out/in for those spaces “between”.

". . . There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in"
- Leonard Cohen, Anthem

Friedman continues, "My photography is a game of discovering wee bits of silence in each moment. Those who recognize this stillness are invited to fill the silent spaces with personal meaning and stories."

Once, I was told: ". . . you have the ability to find and express the calmness and depth of a Zen garden in your visions of the mundane"
- Carl Tassi, vocalist

Friedman says, "The vast majority of my photographs are spontaneous. I kind’a think of them as the results of "gentle passion", "post-meditation", and a "blue door"!"

Steven Bowers says of his work, 'Garbage, litter, rubbish, waste', I began my existence, fresh and new, and you took me into your home. Now I’m used up, worn out, tarnished, torn: a shadow of my former self. Well, we had a good run, didn’t we? Countdown to the moment when I will be hauled off and thrown together with the other detritus of people’s lives. Out with the old, in with the new.”

Bowers continues, "One man’s trash is another man’s photographic treasure. I am fascinated by the juxtaposition of seemingly random, discarded objects against the backdrop of our everyday surroundings.

What unlikely combination of circumstances caused a single shoe to appear in the middle of a rainy intersection – or a discarded microwave oven to be left out for any takers on a city sidewalk – the very days I was searching for something fresh to photograph?

These neglected articles are simultaneously banal and photogenic, and I get a real kick out of capturing this scene that I know will be short-lived. After all: trash pickup is on the way."

Steven Bowers is a self-taught photographer with no formal photography training. He relies on an inquisitive eye, quick shutter-release finger, patience, practice, and the generous mentorship of more experienced photographers to deliver distinctive content and emotional heft through his images.

He was introduced to photography at age 7, spending frequent evenings alongside his father (photographer David Bowers), dodging, burning, and developing images projected by the Beseler enlarger in their home basement darkroom.

Born and raised in New Jersey, at various times Steven has lived in Ithaca, New York, Pasadena, California, Washington, DC, and Vienna, Austria.

He studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University, aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology, and law at George Washington University. Steven resides currently in Portland, Oregon.

NO LOVIN FOR THE OVEN by Steven Bowers(Click on image for larger view)

ONE SAD SHOE by Steven Bowers(Click on image for larger view)

DIG IT by Sue Palmer(Click on image for larger view)

Sue Palmer Stone says of her work, "The images submitted here are from a body of work titled "Striking Poses."

For this series, I experienced photo shoots as a sculptor in a gigantic studio, where I had to search for the materials being offered to me in the environment.

I found the image when an everyday object with its own gravitational field reached out and demanded to be acknowledged with a certain gesture, pose or contortion. Sometimes that was enough, and sometimes I had a slight hand in modeling or removal.

I always aim to share the delight I experience in discovering otherwise unperceived possibilities in ordinary things. "Dig It" was created in Davidson, NC in the town garage and maintenance compound. "Pure Rubbish" was born on a public beach in Westport, CT, and "Think Outside Boxes" on West 21st Street, NYC."

Sue Palmer Stone received her B.A. from Colby College in Maine. After living and working in New York City, she returned to her studies and earned an M.A. in French from New York University.

Later, while raising her family in Connecticut, she began focusing on her photographic pursuits.

Since 2012, she has been a participant in the photography workshops of Sandi Haber Fifield.

Stone's work has been exhibited in juried shows at PhotoPlace Gallery (co-sponsored by Texas Photographic Society), Sohn Fine Art Gallery (First Prize, 2016 Photography Exhibition), the Ridgefield Guild of Artists, and Carriage Barn Arts Center. Her work is also held in several private collections.

Timothy Wyatt says of his work, "Often one walks along the beach, admiring the sand and sun, soaking in the beauty of the natural world.

Yet we overlook or try to ignore the items that wash ashore, dismissing them as an inconvenience at best or trash at worst. However, these discarded and lost items tell stories all their own.

Upon closer inspection, the most mundane can portray a litany of emotions. From the loneliness of a single boot searching for its lost mate to the pain of a pair of sunglasses no longer functional to the closeness seen between a piece of rope and some driftwood.

All these things once had a place but somehow found themselves lost, washed ashore to flounder in the sand. The beauty of these items is not found in the way they look but rather in the emotional range they portray and the questions they illicit.

Though we may gather items around us for their aesthetic qualities or their functionality. All too often we overlook the emotional sense of the mundane.

These feelings are amplified when the same items are found outside their normal context. It is then that we can find the amazing in things that are normally viewed as nothing special."

Timothy Wyatt is a photographer, tutor, and historian living in South East Texas. He spends his time searching for artistry in the ordinary and beauty in the unconventional.

Tom Ridinger says of his work 'You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover But You Can Tell a Picture by Its Frame', "Though cute, that quip didn’t hold much weight for very long, the concept’s foundation shaken each time I failed to respond when asked, “What do you mean by a frame?” And, “Is not this frame then the work of art and not what it contains?”

So, I was like, huh? Because no matter how much I dug the analogy I was no longer serious enough to interrupt an evening getting comfortably lit at Kenny and John’s, or Puffy’s, or settled on a perch near the pool table in Magoo’s, or listening to Sinatra croon Under My Skin at the Beach Street Bar, to forever try to define something that was really never more than a lame excuse for being unable to make art myself.

To make this dilemma even more complicated, I’d gotten myself tangled up in photography, which just by the mechanics of framing a photo pretty much answered the riddle better than I ever could, and in a sublimely simple way.

However, I was never very satisfied by the boundaries it imposed, squinting one eye as the other peered into a looking glass, hoping for that elusive white rabbit to appear. But in time I got used to it, even serious about it.

Then like that, twenty, thirty, forty years rushed by until the day a few months ago I found myself on Greenwich Street in lower Manhattan.

Suddenly, as if feeling the cool breeze of the visitation from a ghost, I stopped in my tracks and for a few seconds I was smack-back in those days, standing in front a joint that had been the fore-mentioned Beach Street Bar, where my good buddy the bartender kept me loaded with Martell Cordon Bleu for a nominal charge and where a lady I knew well, danced for me from time to time up on the bar, keeping my interest peaked.

The contemporary joint still offers alcohol, although serving a much less colorful clientele, and no longer sitting at the edge the world where, beyond it to the west, had been darkness and danger and the gurgle of the Hudson at high tide and the skeletal remains of the Westside Highway.

But that black magic now bloomed with glass and steel, where stick figures whose only talent was moving money around, streamed out of the palace doors to take lunch, blissfully ignorant of anything other than the size of their paychecks and bonuses or their next round of fantasy football.

I crossed the street, something I never had a reason for doing back then. Like wading into a wave I stepped up on the curb then paused as a gang of business-casual cats and chicks passed when something just down the street caught my eye.

Now this something was not out of the ordinary. In fact, it was no more note-worthy than a fire hydrant or mailbox or lamppost.

But that was the point. That was key, damn-it. There was nothing self-conscious about it! And there were more than one—five that I could see, one every twenty feet or so, twelve-inch diamond shaped portals cut from a plywood wall painted playground green, offering for anyone interested a peek at what was going on behind those walls. I stepped up to the first one and looked in.

What I saw simply took my breath away. In front of me was a venue both expressly abstract yet plainly real, and if I positioned myself just so, a mirror mirage of me, all defined by the natural elegance of a wounded and worn sheet of plywood.

It was nothing less than a miracle to me, at last an indication that the reckless bullshit of my youth may have actually been a credible observation. I had finally found my frame.

As a babe in arms I was carried off from my ancestral home of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to the less hallowed ground of Rahway, New Jersey, Concord, North Carolina and Levittown, New York.

After serving time in a college in the midwest I escaped to New York City where over the years at various publications I was referred to as a paste-up kid, a layout guy, a graphic designer, an art director and finally a photo editor winning a box full of awards along the way.

Most notably I was a cofounder of the original Camera Arts magazine, winner of The National Magazine Award and considered by many to have been the best consumer photography magazine ever published in the U.S.

When I was young, many, if not a majority of the gods of art held no academic degrees. In spite of a scholarship Mark Rothko bid an early good-by to Yale. Jackson Pollock was famously expelled from a manual arts high school in Echo Park, California. Before he became a star, Willem de Kooning stowed-away in a tramp steamer then survived in New Jersey doing carpentry and painting houses before becoming a commercial artist in New York.

That was how it was in the 1930s and 40s and into the 50s. But by the time I hit town things were changing. For better or worse everything was in flux. It was the Sixties, after all.

I’d ended my college years short of a degree then bee-lined it to New York. Since Pollack had never worn a cap and gown, I figured I too needed none of that pomp and circumstance, just a class or two at the Art Students League if I was lucky, Parsons or SVA if I wasn’t.

Since I was hardly alone rejecting academia, many of the major colleges and universities not obsessed with football noticed this spike in kids who craved a career in the arts and began aggressively expanding their programs, offering not only B.A.s but advanced degree programs as well, lorded over by the usual pompous old profs along with big-name contemporary artists where if one had the talent and the cash and was willing to spend a decade climbing the academic monkey-bars, one might then be branded at some point in the future a viable investment.

Unfortunately, that came a bit too late for me to take advantage of. By then I was already deep into a real-life grown up soap opera, the challenge of basic survival crashing down upon my shoulders.

Distracted from making art, instead I worked hard to perfect the art of hanging out and talking about art, art that seemed more and more beyond my reach as years paged by. Then whenever the topic of art gestating behind ivied walls came up, my standard pronouncement was already on my tongue. “Art is everywhere,” I’d declare with a smug grin and a sweeping hand. “You don’t need some art star to show you where it’s at, man. All you need is a frame to throw around it.”

Contact: t.ridinger@yahoo.com

GPS SITE 2 by Tom Ridinger(Click on image for larger view)

GPS SITE 3 by Tom Ridinger(Click on image for larger view)

THE JUDEAN MOUNTAINS by Yoav FriedlanderFIRST PLACE WINNER(Click on image for larger view)

Yoav Friedlander says, "The works I produce are inspired by the exchange between an origin and its copy.

A mix of Scale models (photographs) and straight photographs, the body of works accumulates to form a conjunction between the documented and the reconstructed.

Although different, both the photograph as a document, and the indexical scale model visually represent, and claim to be self evident of an existing origin.

In the process of making photographs or scale models I am relying on preexisting images, as I am aware that I cannot reverse the influence of those images on my vision.

Thus I cannot reverse my perception of the origin, constructed by the same preexisting images. The miniatures are recreations of places I don’t have physical access to, personal memories, collective consciousness, and images of places and spaces that I saw only, or at first, photographs.

I make them with the intent that they will echo the realism of the original and bare the illusion of the photograph. The landscapes on the other hand are all shot from the margins of the road, and from that point as far as the eyes can see.

Originally from Israel, I’m adapted to see the landscape from the viewpoint of a car, always ready for quick escape. Surprisingly, in the U.S. I’m bound to the same position only due to the privatization of the land.

The images I make form the illusion I’m roaming the land granted with a full access to it. A foreigner on the paper and on the ground. Reality is not observed through naive eyes.

A world is experienced and perceived through what we see, and how we understand it, and perception is the overlayer responsible for contextualizing it.

We have immersed ourselves with photographs, aspiring to create a volume of copies equal in size to the origin they represent. Yet there is a tendency to miss the changes these copies inspire in the origin they reflect. Relying on photographs we find ourselves considering what is real to be different from how it should be according to its own image.

Clearly ever since the invention of the photograph, reality has become augmented by its own image."

More from Friedlander, “My Grandfather Kurt fled Austria to Israel immediately after the Kristallnacht, served in the British Brigades during WWII and later in the Israeli Army.

After High School I joined the Israeli army myself for a mandatory service as a paratrooper, and became the fourth generation of army soldiers.

I grew up in the valleys of the Judean Desert between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. I am native to Israel but uprooted from my past.”

Yoav received his B.A in photography from Hadassah College Jerusalem (2011), and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts

Zelda Zinn says of her work, "This series, 'Irresistible Air' marks another chapter in my continuing exploration of the grey area between abstraction and representation in photography.

Here, I have manipulated plastic air pillows that come in the mail with fragile purchases into ephemeral sculptural forms. They have been removed from their context, taken into the studio, carefully lit, and then recorded with my digital camera. Shooting the forms in this manner allowed me to utilize the language of traditional fine art photography: isolation of form, sharpness, rendition of surface and shape, tonal range, reflectance and transmission of light.

I am interested in engaging the viewer in dialogue with these pictures; my goal is to entice them to consider if and how they might go beyond what the photo is “of” to contemplate what it might mean to them, capitalizing on the human penchant to seek out and identify shapes and forms, and to assign significance. It is remarkable that such simple materials function as a screen onto which we can project our own images, or simply appreciate the visual pleasures of light and physics."

Zelda Zinn was born in Louisiana, and grew up in a big family in Texas, back when it was a blue state. Drawing and dreaming up contraptions were early pleasures. She fell in love with photography when she was 10 years old, having taken a magical photo of her best friend with a huge gum bubble covering her face. She attended an arts high school before studying the classics at St. John’s College.

For grad school, she attended the University of New Mexico, receiving an MA and an MFA in photography. She taught photography for many years, and loved to make photo enthusiasts of her students. She views photography as one of many tools available to artists, and likes to get her hands dirty with other media such as printing, painting, and making sculpture.

She was fortunate to be awarded artist’s residencies to the Santa Fe Art Institute and Vermont Studio Center. Both have had a profound impact on her art making. She continues to be amazed by the worlds of nature and the imagination.